Category Archives: Debt

Goose-Stepping Stupid

My favorite analogy in describing the random, rudderless veering of the political and economic “minds” that bedevil us on the idiot’s lantern is Brownian motion—microscopic particles (the minds in question) in motion, suspended in gas. Peter Schiff likens the flurry to a “flock of pigeons that stays in tight formation, flies feverishly, while refusing to stick to any particular direction for very long”:

“Today’s weak GDP numbers have finally caused the mass of economists to revise downward their formerly optimistic recovery forecasts, with many finally entertaining the possibility of a ‘double dip’ recession. It should be obvious by now that these economists only have the capacity to describe where the economy is moving in the short-term…they have no ability to explain the reasons behind the macro trends or make predictions that go beyond the next data release. But economics is not dart throwing. It can be understood and properly forecast.

The major mental block is that most economists believe that an economy grows as a result of spending. Any policy that encourages spending and discourages savings and investment is considered beneficial. Unfortunately, these policies, which only succeed in growing debt and government, act more as an economic sedative than a stimulant.”

[SNIP]

What do you know, the geese described above have news: it’s all good. TIME magazine wants you to know: Rising unemployment is good.

The Department of Labor reported August job numbers on Friday, and the numbers appeared to be another bad sign for the recovery. The economy lost 54,000 positions in the last full month of summer. Worse, the unemployment rate rose for the first time in four months to 9.6%, from a rate of 9.5% the month before.
So is this jobs report the latest sign that we are headed for a double dip? Probably not. Actually it’s the opposite. Despite what it looks like, today’s jobs numbers are good news for the economy. Mark Zandi, a closely watched economist, had this to say on CNBC when the job report was announced, “It solidifies the idea the economic recovery is going to remain intact.”

For a moment I was worried (actually, I began to worry—and warned of hyperinflation—in 2003, when “W” began the deficit spending in earnest).

The fig leaf of a “jobless recovery” is being used a bit less, but substitutes are coming fast and furious.

UPDATED: The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal

Debt, Democrats, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Political Economy, Republicans, Taxation, The State, War, Welfare

The following is from my new, WND column, “The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal”:

“… If I understand the Republican line for the coming midterms, it is that, thankfully, there is a smart, economically stimulating way for the State to spend money it had lifted from the private economy (and, in the process, crowded out private, productive economic activity).

Time and again, Republicans will explain to us of the booboisie that the stimuli consisted of misguided spending so typical of Democrats, instead of precision-guided make-work projects, the hallmark of Republikeynesian economic ‘thought.'”

With few exceptions, Republican politicians, and their matching Tweedledim and Tweedledimmer cable personalities, seem incapable of countering the fiction that vests central planners with the ability to create viable jobs by appropriating private property, and redistributing it, based on bureaucratic and political considerations.

The unsparing critique the likes of dodo Perino, Newt, Dick, Karl, et. al, will invariably voice is that the Dems did not apply the stolen funds the way one ought to have; as the GOPers would have.” ….

The complete column is “The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal.”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATE (Aug. 27): Wiley hereunder, in the Comments Section, clearly misunderstands an ad hominem argument. My column has some fun with Fox’s affirmative females, after which their “arguments”—“things go in cycles“/Republicans would ‘stimulate‘ better than the Dems”—were showcased for their profound folly. This is not ad hominem. Had I presented Dana dunderhead’s “case” for economic recovery without the spice, no one would read this column.

UPDATED: The 2 Parties' Question: How Much To Steal

Debt, Democrats, Federal Reserve Bank, Political Economy, Republicans, Taxation, The State, War, Welfare

The following is from my new, WND column, “The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal”:

The complete column is “The 2 Parties’ Question: How Much To Steal.”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material and reviews. Get your copy (or copies) now!

UPDATED: ‘Tax Cuts Not Paid For’ Says Thief

Debt, Democrats, Journalism, Media, Natural Law, Republicans, Taxation, The State

The execrable bunch that convened to Meet The Press on Sunday carried out a conversation about the irresponsible Republikeynesians’ tax policy.

Against the Republikeynesians, moderator DAVID GREGORY argued that “if you’re concerned, as Republicans say they are, about cutting spending and the deficit, you have to acknowledge that tax cuts are not paid for.”

“It’s still borrowed money,” contended Gregory, paraphrasing the Great Inflater, ALAN GREENSPAN.

Other than meekly pointing out that the problem we have is a problem of spending, Mitch McConnel, being a Republican, made various weak appeals such as that “if you push this economy further backward, we’ll get less revenue for the government, not more.” And “raising taxes in the middle of a recession on the major job generator in America, small business, is a very, very bad idea.”

TAXES ARE STOLEN PROPERTY. A tax cut, especially to high income earners who pay most of the taxes, is a return of stolen goods. To say that you need to “pay for tax cuts,” as Gregory does, is akin to a thief saying he can’t return the TV he just stole until he is in a better financial position.

On the other hand, “taxation hits the pocketbook directly; government’s borrowing and counterfeiting does so indirectly—it devalues Joe the Plumber’s labor, assets, purchasing power, and savings. Unaware of how he’s being ground down, Generic Joe keeps on consuming until he crashes.”

UPDATE (Aug. 24): “Arguing for higher taxes for the rich” is tantamount to arguing for a transfer of wealth from those who pay taxes to those who habitually consume them. It’s always an election-winning strategy given that the last group outnumbers the first. Ask Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Reuters: “Thousands have taken to the streets this summer to demonstrate against plans by Merkel’s center-right government to cut billions of euros in spending on the unemployed without imposing a similar burden on the other end of society.”

Come again? Does the correspondent mean to imply that the pain of doing without as much welfare as before is on par with having to fork out for it (without being entitled to it?)

In mobocracy, some are more equal than others.

Want proof that, the world over, “Statism begins With YOU”?

“Surveys indicate that if a national vote were held now, the opposition would crush Merkel and her allies, whose coalition lost its majority in the upper house of parliament after defeat in a regional election in May.”

Speaking of statism, HERE AT HOME, the booboisie want their “runny egg yolks for mopping up with toast” better monitored by Big Daddy.

A salmonella outbreak, and “the largest egg recall that has happened in recent history,” simply show that the fatter the feds the happier egg-scarfing Americans stand to be.